The present technology relates to a display including a liquid crystal layer, and an electronic unit including the display.
In recent years, as various electronic units such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) come into wide use, demand for a display that offers lower power consumption and high image quality is increasing. Above all, nowadays, since electronic book terminals for reading letter information for long periods of time are attracting attention along with the advent of distribution businesses of electronic books, a display having visual quality suitable for such a purpose is desired.
As displays for reading, displays of cholesteric liquid crystal type, electrophoresis type, electric oxidation reduction type, and twist ball type are proposed. Above all, liquid crystal displays that generate contrast by utilizing variation in orientation of liquid crystal molecules are preferable. In particular, in consideration of handleability or the like, liquid crystal displays of flexible type using a flexible plastic film or the like as a supporting base are more preferable.
In addition, displays classified as reflection type are also preferable. The reason for this is that since such displays utilize reflection (scattering) of external light similarly to a paper in order to perform bright display, display quality close to that of the paper is obtained, and that since a backlight is unnecessary, power consumption is reduced.
A leading candidate of the displays of the reflection type is electrophoretic displays that utilize the electrophoresis of electric charge particles to generate contrast. This is because electrophoretic displays offer low power consumption and very quick response. The electrophoretic display is provided with a display substrate including an electrophoretic element, and a driving substrate including a thin film transistor (TFT) that drives the display substrate and the like.
Along with practical use of electrophoretic displays, various studies have been made with respect to ensuring of performance. Specifically, it is known that a display substrate is covered with a protective layer in order to prevent a situation in which the movement of electric charge particles is interfered by intrusion of water. In this case, it is proposed that a protective layer is provided on a top face of a display substrate, and a sealing material is formed on side faces of the display substrate (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2009-134324). It is also proposed that a display substrate is covered by a protective layer, and end portions of the protective layer are adhered to a surface of a driving substrate through an adhesive agent (see, for example, Published Japanese Translation of PCT Application No. JP 2009-529711).